Disturbing the Peace
“where they make a wasteland, they call it peace” (Calgacus – Scottish Chieftain – AD83
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We watch America burn in response to an unjustifiable death and we are horrified by the chaos and the flames. But there is a more damaging response than chaos; it’s disinterest. There is an uglier sight than flames; it’s apathy. There is a more disturbing sound than screams and chants; it’s silence.
Listen: Aboriginal Western Australians are the most incarcerated people on the planet. Please read that sentence again. And again.
The rates are much higher than African-Americans; much higher than the other Australian states and territories. This fact is shocking. But what’s more shocking is our response as Western Australians: apathy, silence, disinterest.
The causes of this shocking rate of incarceration are deep and complex.
And solutions are many if only we’ll listen and take notice. Those solutions rest with all of us – with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people; with governments and communities; with police and CCTV operators; with prison officers and health workers; with businesses and non-government services; with sports clubs and churches. With all of us.
But none of these solutions can even begin to take hold until we break ourselves out of apathy, silence and disinterest.
A little over 30 years ago my Dad, as Royal Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, asked Ernie Bridge – then a key Aboriginal politician – ‘what can I possibly say that you and other leaders have not been saying for decades’? Mr Bridge’s response was ‘Probably nothing. But they might listen to you’. We didn’t.
Today we have many clear, strong articulate Aboriginal voices calling to us to join them in change. Can we, at least, listen to them? As Americans rage in the streets can we at least insist, as Western Australians, that we will no longer turn away; that we will no longer respond with apathy, silence and disinterest?
Of course we can. Let’s start.
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Some related musings:
Colonisation or Dispossession? The difference matters.
Statement from the Heart…don’t turn away
Two men fight in a war…
Christine’s inspiration – of truth, healing and courage
Great article Tim. Spot on!!!
Despite the apathy and silence we must persist in calling it out.
Thank you for your life long support of freedom for Aboriginal people
Thanks Maz. We’re all this together – albeit with different roles to play. We just need to do all we can unna.
It is another eye-opener article. Thank you,Tim.
I will do my best to do more starting today.
“All things come of necessity, by the path of cause and effect.”
And
“The pact made with Logic to which nature owes its existence binds all manner of life to the path of least resistance.”
So says Logic of each.
And so the only way to defeat apathy is to create a necessity – and make it more difficult to tolerate the problem than to resolve the problem.
This is rarely done by bringing attention to an issue – as the very need to highlight an issue is confirmation of a lacking necessity as well as a path of greater resistance.
So with this in mind – what, then, might the solution be?
Here is just one idea, off-the-cuff;
Petition for the introduction of a tax or a levy that scales with the number of indiginous incarcerations in WA. The more incarcerations, the greater the levy applied to the taxpayers. It surely should not be difficult to convince the WA government to introduce such a levy – and obviously the proceeds of the levy would be spent on addressing the cause (and perhaps publicising the levy itself, to create the necessity for change as well as the desire for a path of least resistance)
If this approach were to be perceived as creating a divide in the community, you need only adapt the levy you petition for to apply to ALL incarcerations but with an increased amount for the indiginous instances.
The levy might also be used to fund new enterprise incentives on a reward-for-success basis offered to the private sector in some way, for demonstrated results in lowering recitivism.
I submit that this approach would have much greater odds of success – or at least, catalysing the series of events that would lead to success – than any I have heard to date. I hope my suggestion is helpful.